New study sheds light on car-sharing, development trends

Updated 2017-06-05 13:11:05Ecns.cn

Shared cars park on a street in Beijing. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

(ECNS) -- The China Academy of Transportation Sciences under the Ministry of Transport, along with car-sharing companies, have jointly conducted a study and comprehensive analysis of the burgeoning car-sharing industry in China's first-tier cities, People's Daily reported on Monday.

In Beijing, shared cars made an average of about five 20-kilometer trips a day, with mileage more than four times that of an ordinary private car, according to the study. Orders for cars were mainly placed between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on workdays, the study said.

The number of private car driving licenses has topped 300 million in China, but private car ownership remains below 100 million, the report said. In Beijing alone, more than 1 million citizens are competing for car license plates via lottery system.

In addition, scarcity and high cost of parking are thorny issues in many first-tier cities. At the end of 2016, there was a 55.64-million gap between the supply and demand of parking spaces, according to the report.

The latest study was based on a big data platform of car-sharing companies as well as transport data from official think-tanks and labs.